


Revenge

by nonbinaryezrabridger



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, don’t copy to other sites, tw:Suicidal thoughts, tw:self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryezrabridger/pseuds/nonbinaryezrabridger
Summary: “What do you want?”Fischer tilts his head minutely, considering how to answer that, and says:“I was simply curious. I want to meet the man who destroyed me. Or shall I say the man who rebirthed me?”(Or, Dom and Robert talk)
Relationships: Dom Cobb & Robert Fischer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever write something and then realize you're subconsciously working through your own trauma by writing it? yeah that's what this is
> 
> tw: mentions of suicidal thoughts, thoughts of self harm (but no actual self harm occurs)

\----------

Robert Fischer sits at a bar in a pub. It's a well kept place, but worn in some places, with chips in the wood of the bar and in the paint on the walls. Their beer isn’t bad, but Robert doesn’t bother drinking more than a couple sips. It’s not real beer, anyways. 

He’s here for a reason. 

At first he tries just sitting there. Just waiting at the bar, waiting for Mr. Charles to find him. He notices the strangeness of the dream, just like the man showed him, and expects that to be enough. 

It isn’t. 

Mr. Charles doesn’t show.

So he moves up to hiring a sufficiently skilled extractor to test his mind’s defenses. He has the extractor put him under and try to steal information from his brain, hoping that’ll bring Mr. Charles out. 

It doesn’t. The man remains just as elusive. 

When he comes out of the dream he snarls and smashes his fist into a table and asks:

“What are we doing wrong?”

The extractor gives him a look, almost pitying, but says bluntly:

“Nothing, sir. If this Mr. Charles was truly a projection of your brain, he would have shown up.”

Robert feels like he’s sinking; like he’s going to throw up. 

“What do you mean?”

The extractor sighs, but continues without hesitating:

“Sir, I can only conclude that this Mr. Charles was an extractor, using a skilled trick to make you think he was a projection.”

Robert is hunched over the table, his fingers claws on the wooden surface. He takes a deep breath and waves the extractor away; the man has been paid already, they need not have any further interaction.

The truth is beginning to sink in. His mind has been cracked open, torn apart, violated, for information. 

He thinks of the dream. What they could have possibly wanted. The only thing he can think of is the combination to the safe, but he had checked. That safe doesn’t exist. The combination was meaningless.

So he keeps his ear to the ground in dream walking circles and learns all he can. Until one day he hears a whisper about inception. 

He quickly drills his informants on it. Most of them laugh it off, say it’s impossible. One says they’ve someone who claimed to do it, a dom cobb.

Inception. 

An idea added, rather than subtracted.

That, he thinks, makes more sense.

————

He splits up his father's empire. 

_ I am my own man. _

He shaves his head, cries his eyes out, has paparazzi plaster his breakdown all over the news. And when it’s over, he takes the money he’d set aside for himself, moves to a small apartment, and gets a job.

  
  


————-

It takes some work, but he tracks down Dom Cobb. 

In his apartment, he shaves carefully, slicks back his hair. Blinks at himself in the mirror, makes sure his suit is as well fitted as it should be. 

He used to own closets full of nice suits. Now he owns one. 

He walks up to the quaint house, looks it over appreciatively. It’s the kind of place people dream of growing old in. He rings the door bell and waits. 

———

Cobb hears the doorbell ring. The kids are asleep this early in the morning, so he heads to the front door without distraction. 

He opens the door to come face to face with Robert Fischer. 

He’s instantly tense, looking for weapons or hired thugs. But there’s just the wispy man, standing there, blue eyes intent but not unfriendly. 

He asks:

“May I come in?”

Cobb grits his teeth and backs away, leaving the door open. Fischer comes in, wiping his shoes on the spring themed welcome mat. He walks slowly but purposely, like a man who knows exactly what he wants. 

Cobb backs into the kitchen, Fischer matching him step for step, and pulls open a drawer to pull out a pistol. He holds it up for Fischer to see, but doesn’t quite point it at him. Fischer’s lips tug up in a wry smile and he says:

“No need for that, Mr. Cobb. I’m unarmed and alone. You may search me, if that will make you feel better?”

Cobb does so, and finds no weapons. It doesn’t make him feel better. But he leans back against the counter and asks:

“What do you want?”

Fischer tilts his head minutely, considering how to answer that, and says:

“I was simply curious. I want to meet the man who destroyed me. Or shall I say the man who rebirthed me?”

Cobb feels the guilt hit him. He remembers driving Mal mad and wonders if he’s done the same to Fischer. Inception is something so truly soul changing, it’s not something to be done lightly. 

But he had to get home to his kids. 

It was worth it, even if it destroyed the man in front of him. 

So he asks:

“You don’t look destroyed.”

Fischer laughs, and it seems genuine.

“I don’t feel destroyed. At least, not anymore.”

Cobb doesn’t know what possessed him to say it, but he does:

“Good.”

Fischer smiles wider, flashing a bit of white teeth. Then he leans forwards and asks:

“But was it? Inception?”

Cobb sighs.

“Yes. Only the second time it’s ever been done.”

Fischer hums.

“Not the first, hmm? Maybe I’m not too special.”

Cobb just stares. Fischer continues:

“Such an accomplishment. And yet no bragging, no repeat performances, nothing but living in this quaint little house.”

Cobb bites out:

“I didn’t do it for fame or money.”

Fischer echoes him earlier:

“Good.”

Then he asks:

“Then why did you?”

Cobb feels his throat close up. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but at the same time he feels he owes it to fisher.

“It was the only way I could see my children again.”

Fischer looks fond.

“Children. How wonderful.”

And he seems to actually mean it. Cobb feels the guilt begin to fade and suddenly curiosity takes its place. He asks:

“How are you doing, Fischer?”

Fischer props his head up on a hand and replies:

“I’m doing well. Got a medium paying job I enjoy, an apartment, some friends. I’m living a very simple life, compared to my childhood.”

Cobb feels almost validated, hearing that. Like maybe doing the inception wasn’t so bad. But a part of him knows that just because it turned out okay doesn’t make it right. 

Fischer is still looking at him, and his blue eyes turn more intent, more serious. Cobb quails slightly, afraid of what this change means. Fischer speaks, voice as even as before:

“But I want to know, Cobb. Did my father actually love me? Or was that all part of the inception.”

Cobb hesitates, knowing Fischer won’t like the answer:

“I don’t know. We thought positive emotions would work better than negative, so we tried to make it bring out good experiences with your father. But were they all real? Probably not.”

Fischer sighs, drops his eyes from Cobb for the first time since he entered. He almost whispers:

“I thought so. It seemed too good to be true.”

Then his entire mood changes and he glares before snarling:

“I want you to know that what you did was wrong. The fact that I’ve healed and I’m okay now doesn’t erase what you did or how it hurt me. I hope you know that.”

Cobb bows his head, shame coming back in one giant wave. But there is nothing he can say; what can he do, defend himself? No, not when even he knows that he was in the wrong. They all were. 

Fischer has suddenly changed back into his congenial self. He smiles and says:

“Thank you for speaking with me, mister Cobb. I hope your children are well.”

Then he leaves, as silently as he came.

————-

Robert gets home, dropping his keys on the shelf next to the door and kicks off his dress shoes. 

Then he sits on the couch and waits.

The numbness that had come over him throughout the whole conversation begins to fade and is replaced with rage. He jolts up and screams with everything in him, before swiping at the lamp on the end table, sending it to the floor where the delicate glass shatters. 

He could go to uncle Peter, who is still a businessman with considerable power, and order Dom Cobb’s life extinguished. He could, if he wanted to.

He thinks of the unnamed children in the house and knows he doesn’t want that. He’s not going to sink to their level; he wants to be better than them.

Despite the decision, he finds himself walking towards the kitchen. He feels like a zombie, like his legs are moving on their own. They walk him to the counter where his two kitchen knives lay and he stares. He wants it, almost so bad he’s shaking with it. He wants to press the blade to his skin again and gain some sort of release. 

He spins away, forcing himself out of the kitchen and back to the couch. He sits on his hands, literally. He sits in silence, staring at the destroyed lamp, and feels tears begin to roll down his cheeks. 

And through it all, that ringing thought:

_ I am my own man. _

That has to be the inception. It rises to his attention constantly, never leaves him. That’s what they’ve planted. 

Does that undo all the progress he’d made?

His breakdown after his father died, the trauma of years of living with the man overcoming him, despite the hasty band aid of a reconciliation the inception had taped over. The suicidal thoughts and attempts, the self harm, the panic attacks, all this he has lived through. And he’s built a life, one he’s happy with. 

Does the inception undo all of that?

No.

He is his own man, whether that’s from the inception’s urging or not. He decides then, sobbing on the couch, that he will be better than what the inception had tried to make him. He will be better than those who traumatized and violated him. He will be better than what his father thought he could be. He will be better.

Slowly, the tears stop.

\----------


End file.
